Let's use this chance
by Tc33 - Amie
Summary: Doctor/River, Amy/Rory... they all meet in the Ponds house to have dinner. Fluffy ;
1. Welcome home

Here we go, fluffy one!

The title is from _Invincible_, Muse. Not really linked with the story but I could not find a proper title and then I was listening to that wonderful band so... Why not ?

Thanks to my beta goblindreamer, who really did a wonderful job with this one.

_Disclaimer : I still don't own any of the character._

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><p><em><strong>Let's use this chance to turn things around <strong>_

**1- Welcome home**

When the television turned on and off a few times without any reason to explain it, Amy knew that they would have some visitors. She sent Rory out to buy some wine and she began cooking. She was peeling apples to make a pie when the time vortex light shined in her living room and, after a few seconds, her daughter appeared in the kitchen.

"Hi Mum!

"Hi Honey!"

River kissed her mother's forehead and sat on the bar. Amy watched her daughter lift the lids of the saucepans and tasting what was cooking in. She wore jeans and a plain black t-shirt. She was a bit dirty and perhaps a bit tired, but she looked happy, as she probably had just come from one of her very exciting adventures. Amy thought that she looked young, very young. It might be the very beginning for her. River licked her lips and then looked at her mother, before asking.

"So, when are you Mum?"

"Far away in your future, I'm afraid."

"How could you..."

"I'm your mother. I just know."

They smiled smiles of complicity. Whenever they met and whatever they did, they were not only mother and daughter, they were friends. They had known themselves from their childhood and had grown up together, it had created strong links between them.

"And you, when are you exactly?

"The fields of Rognivera."

"First case on your own, congratulations!"

"Yes, thank you."

She was still smiling, and Amy could see her daughter's pride, but she also knew that her joy was not completely perfect. Someone was missing. She had thought he would come, but he did not. She had to be on her own, for the first time. And nobody to see her, to see how brilliant she was. That was one of the reason why she had come home, where she knew she would find her family, to listen to her and share her happiness; and, sometimes, when she was lucky and when time was fine with her, she would also find him.

"Do you know if…"

"I'm sorry River, I don't. Maybe, maybe not. None of you ever tell me when you're coming."

"Yes, yes, of course, you don't."

She bit her lip. It was not her mother's fault; and she had to be less emotional. She shook her head to banish her thoughts from her mind.

"Can I do something to help?

"Well, maybe you could lay the table? In the garden, please."

It was the beginning of the summer, the day had been warm and sunny and the night promised to be mild. River took three plates off the cupboard and went off the kitchen, and Amy heard the back door slammed as her daughter went out.

She had not been alone an entire minute before she saw some blue lights coming out of her oven, and she understood what that meant. She stood up, anddried her hands to take another plate and follow her daughter.

"River, sweetie, I think that—"

She could not finish her sentence. The well-known sound of the TARDIS echoed from her garden, and she opened the back door just in time to see the blue box appearing in her terrace. Her daughter tried to contain her joy as the Doctor came out, holding a bouquet of flowers for River.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Amy smiled. She knew what came after, she knew it was a game between them, but when her daughter and the Doctor were there, in her house, with her and Rory, she believed that they were a family and, in a way, they really were home.

**{...}**


	2. Have dinner with the Ponds

**2-** **Have ****dinner ****with the Ponds **

It was a beautiful night. They sat in the garden, which was lit up by candles and a sky filled up with stars. As they ate, they drink wine (except the Doctor who still could not stand it), they laugh and forgot, for a moment, their complicated lives.

After comparing diaries and memories, they realized River was earlier in their story, so she was the one to ask questions and tell them her latest adventure. She explained how she ran out from Stormcage (one of her first escapes of her own—the guards were not used to see their prisoners escaping every week and the security was easy to break for a time traveler), reached Rognivera, which was the moon of an unpronounceable planet, and freed the population from its dictator after defeated his whole army.

Her eyes were filled with excitement. She was young River discovering what she could do and the fact that she did it brilliantly. Her parents asked her questions, even if they already knew the whole story. They liked the way this River was telling them about it.

The Doctor did not ask anything and barely spoke, but he got that smile on his face, and it was enough to show how he felt. During the whole dinner, Amy watched him and her daughter very carefully. It was like they were avoiding any exchange between them. They were sitting side by side but they never touched. They did not even look at each other—not at the same time. Their eyes never met. She looked at him when he was speaking to her parents, stared at his lips moving, detailed every inch of his face, and Amy could see it was hard for him to pretend he did not notice. And when she was not looking at him he moved his eyes on her, gazed at her hair and the curve of her nose, and she had to summon up all her strengths not to flush.

Amy wondered if it was a game, perhaps one of their rules (never show affection front of others, even if "others" were actually parents and parents-in-law), or if the link between them was so intense that, if they began, they would never be able to stop it. They looked like young teenagers living some first exciting forbidden adventure, more than adults officially wife and husband. Although, they were not really "officially" married, not for this planet, not for the human conception of marriage, and while the Doctor was more than a thousand years old, he could not really be called an "adult".

And so went the night, smiling and laughing and sharing memories, until the silence fell between them. They just sat, listening to the sounds around them, owls hooting somewhere in the night and the breeze singing in the trees. Amy noticed that her daughter's chair had moved closer to her neighbor's, and it was difficult for the lovers eyes to avoid the other's now there was nothing else to pay attention to. So Amy stood up to clear the table and when River began to help her she stopped her, kindly but firmly.

"River, please, don't. Your father will help. Rory, won't you?"

She gave him a nudge, and he was about to moan when he saw his wife's look and the way the glanced at their daughter. He knew he could not fight against that look. As a consequence, he just nodded to her, clumsily.

"Er, , of course. River listen to your mother, please sit down."

So River did, and crossed her hands under her chest. She exactly knew what her mother was thinking about, and her father might have understood too—she'd just have to look at his face. She did not really like when her parents were acting like that with her, but she did not want to argue with them. Actually, the situation was ridiculous; everybody knew what everybody thought but nobody would say a single word about it—even the Doctor, who was absorbed by the contemplation of a blade of grass. But she did not say anything, and so everybody stayed silent, until Amy and Rory disappeared in the house.

**{...}**


	3. Behind the window

**3- Behind the window**

Moments like this one made her really feel like a mother. She was looking at her young girl and her husband behind the window, hidden by the curtain, checking if everything was okay. And it looked like it was.

They were standing now and having a walk in the garden. Watching them, she really felt like she was looking at two children flirting and falling in love with each other for the first time. She knew her daughter was young and still discovering her life with the Doctor, but he was older and had lived with her for hundreds years now, but however he still acted with her as if it only was the beginning.

They were close to each other but not really touching yet, until they finally stopped and he bent over to pick up a daisy and put it in her hair. He stood back so he could see what she looked like, his hand still holding her curls. Then, he slowly moved, his fingers going down River's cheeks and stopping on her chin. His thumb raised her lips and he slowly went close to her.

Amy thought he was about to kiss her daughter but he did not. Actually he lowered his lips toher ear and whispered something to her. When he pulled back his wife answered him and they both began to laugh, and Amy could almost hear it, a clear and impulsive laugh, from some private words that they were the only ones in the world to understand.

When they stopped, they stood still a few seconds, just looking at each other, and that look was far better than words. At that moment, Amy knew that everything her daughter had once told her was true. He would take care of her, all his life, whatever it takes. She could see it, in his eyes, the way he looked at her, he loved her and would never let anybody or anything hurt her. He would do the best he could to protect her and to give her all she deserved to.

Behind her window Amy sighed. She had never really doubt, from the first time she had met River, that day far away in the Byzantium, that those two, it _was_ to happen_. _But then she learnt that River was her daughter and the Doctor once lost her, her baby... And there was that silly Rule 1, that he used very often, that River used too, and Amy sometimes wondered how that story would end. Never meeting in the right order and one day she knew that her daughter would met her husband and he would barely recognize her, perhaps one day he would meet her and would not have a single idea of who she was... Would that Doctor take care of her as much as the one who was in the garden, his fingers strongly entwined with her daughter's, so in love that Amy could almost hear his hearts beating from her place?

"Amy?"

She turned back and saw Rory. He came to her and opened the curtain a bit to follow his wife's look.

"Are you spying our daughter?

"No, I'm not. I'm just checking everything's right."

"And, what do you think?"

"Well, it looks very right."

She smiled. The two shapes outside were only one now, mixed in a passionate kiss. The Doctor got his hands around River's waist and she was holding on him, her fingers tightly clasped on his suit. When they separated she stayed close to him, her forehead against him, and she played with his bow-tie, biting her lips. When their eyes finally crossed he smiled and took her hand, carrying her through the garden to his blue box. They entered it and the TARDIS disappeared a few seconds after the door was closed behind them.

Rory opened his mouth, looking at the empty space in his garden.

"Are they leaving?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so."

"And they didn't even say a proper good bye."

"They'll come back."

She took a look outside, at the stars shining on the sky, and thought about her daughter that may be somewhere walking in one of them, and wonderedwhat kind of story she was living.

"Yes," Amy whispered, "they always do, don't they?"

**The end**

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><p><em>Thank you very much for reading!<em>  
><em>Reviews are welcome ;)<strong><br>**_


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